The Truth We Bury: A Novel

by Barbara Taylor Sissel

  Over the dull thudding of her heart, Lily listened for the sound of a siren, praying for it, but there was nothing, not even in the far distance. Maybe the police wouldn’t use them, she thought. Maybe they were here already, in the trees, and they would come out, guns drawn, any second.

  “Bec went limp, finally,” Erik said. “I gotta say it was a relief. But then I got scared. I mean, what if she woke up? I’d seen your knife, bro, in the kitchen sink.” Erik addressed AJ. “You left it out.” He shrugged. “I had to be sure.”

  “What about Kate, Erik?” Shea stepped forward. “You just said she was the best thing that ever happened to you, but you killed her. Why?”

  His expression softened; his shoulders slumped. “You and Katie—you girls were so damn cute, you know? So funny and sweet.” He grinned, but his eyes were horrible, bottomless black wells of regret. He looked at AJ. “You remember, vato, how it was going to be, the four of us? Living on the same street, raising our kids together? You remember how they talked about it? Kate and Shea? ‘Besties marrying besties,’ that’s what they said. Our giggle girls. Remember how we called them that?”

  “I remember all of that, bro,” AJ said, and his voice was thick, hurt.

  Erik addressed Shea. “Thursday night when I left the note on Leigh’s car—”

  “The one you tried to make look as if AJ wrote?” An undercurrent of fury heated Shea’s voice.

  “Kate called me when she left your house. She knew—well, she didn’t know for sure it was me and not AJ who killed Becca, but I knew it wasn’t going to be long until she—until everyone figured it out.” Erik shoved his hand over his head. “God, I was scared. I knew by then I was done, that it was over. Kate would break our engagement. Losing her, our life together—that was just the fucking cherry on top of the shit sundae that is my life.”

  The pause was taut, fragile.

  Erik broke it. “I got her to agree to go on one last hike, give me one chance to talk it through in person. I said I could explain, and if afterward she thought I should go to the cops, I would. She went for it. You know how she was.”

  “The story you told, that Kate was confused about where you were meeting, you made that up, didn’t you?” Shea asked.

  “Yeah, it was messed up. I never figured she’d get found so fast. But I made so damn many mistakes. Like taking AJ to the fort. I should have known it would be about the first place the old man would look.” Erik gestured at AJ. “I should have killed you right off, but I couldn’t, vato, you know?”

  “But you could kill Katie?” Shea was anguished, furious.

  “I couldn’t let her go to the cops. And I’m a shit for it. I know that.” He raised the .45 to his head.

  “No, hijo!” Winona scrambled to her feet. “Give it to me; por favor, te lo suplico.”

  “Don’t do it, Erik.”

  Lily glanced at her dad as he took a step, then another, over the rough ground.

  “I don’t know what started this,” he said, “but it’s over now. Give your mother the gun.”

  Winona said, “You left your will out on your desk, and he saw it, Jeb. That’s what started this, that’s when he knew you had broken your promise—”

  “No. I would never do that.”

  “I didn’t want to believe it, either, but Erik wouldn’t lie. You meant him to see, didn’t you? You couldn’t tell him or me to our face how you have lied to us all these years, could you? He’s nothing to you, isn’t that right? Your own son—”

  “My father, and his father before him, poured their sweat and blood into this land. They built the xL brand and made it count for something. I carried on the tradition, worked my ass off, because that’s what it takes. But Erik’s not into hard work. He doesn’t like getting his hands dirty. He’d rather sell cars.”

  “The way you have talked about them to me, your father and grandfather would never have broken a promise they made. They would never have broken a man’s heart, his spirit. This is on you, Jeb Axel. This, today”—the sweep of Winona’s arm encompassed them all—“and everything else Erik has done. You drove him to it. How could you?”

  Lily waited, they all did, for her dad to answer, but there was only the sound of the wind rifling the trees, an uneven hand.

  AJ said, “Erik, give your mom the gun. Or give it to me.” He hitched forward on his crutches.

  Erik jerked the .45 from his head and pointed it at AJ.

  Lily heard her dad yell, “No, goddamn it!”

  She was aware of Shea coming around AJ as if she would shield him. It was automatic when Lily reached out to steady him and in doing so found she had her arms around them both, AJ and Shea, with her back presented to Erik, a target.

  Then the awful pause.

  The horrible second that dragged into forever, while she waited for the sound of the bullet ripping through the air, ripping into her spine. And a prayer filled her mind that it would not pass through her to strike AJ or Shea. Dru would be devastated to lose Shea, her daughter for whom Lily had no doubt she would lay down her life. Winona, too, would give her life for Erik, regardless of his monstrous acts. As mothers they shared in this, the undying devotion to their children. For they are always your children, no matter their age. They are your children, too, regardless of their mistakes or even the horrors they perpetrate. Lily prayed for Winona, because even if she were to give her life for Erik, it wouldn’t save him from what he’d done.

  “Drop the gun, Erik!”

  It was her dad shouting.

  AJ broke from Lily’s grasp, staggering, almost falling.

  And now the shot came. Finally. Cracking the air, followed by AJ’s shout: “Granddad!”

  Turning, Lily saw her dad crumpled on his side on the porch, Erik on his hands and knees, struggling for breath. Winona stood over them, holding the .45 in her shaking grasp. Somehow, AJ reached the porch first, and taking the gun from Winona, he ordered Erik to sit against the wall.

  Lily and Shea ran up the porch steps. Shea went to AJ’s side, but Lily knelt beside her dad. He rolled onto his back.

  “I’m okay,” he said. “Just winded.” He pulled himself upright.

  “Erik didn’t shoot you?”

  “No, he couldn’t do it. At the last minute, he shot into the air. I tackled him, and Win got the gun.”

  “Thank God.” Lily sat back on her heels, and on hearing sirens in the distance, she felt a gritty wash of relief. She glanced over her shoulder at Winona, weeping softly, and past her at Erik. But if he registered Lily’s attention, it didn’t show. His eyes were glassy, eerily vacant of expression.

  She remembered a summer visit from years ago when he came down with strep throat. His eyes had been empty of awareness then, too, glazed with fever that at its highest had registered 104. She’d fed him ice chips with a spoon. She and Win and her dad had traded off sleeping nights in an armchair next to Erik’s bed. When his fever finally broke, they’d known he was feeling better when he managed to croak out a request for ice cream. Lily’s dad had driven to town for it, and without asking, he’d known to buy rocky road, Erik’s favorite. Her dad had bought grape Popsicles, too, and chocolate pudding. And when AJ spiked a fever mere hours after Erik began to recover, they went through the whole routine again. After both boys were well, it had rained for several days. They’d worked puzzles and played endless games of Risk that Lily’s dad had let AJ and Erik take turns winning, out on the porch.

  If she closed her eyes now, she would hear the echoes of their blithe, untroubled laughter; she would see how the damp wind had ruffled their hair. She didn’t close her eyes.

  She helped her dad get to his feet, and a look passed between them, one that contained his acknowledgment of the secrets he had kept from her and from AJ. He would have to own them and his betrayal of her, AJ, Erik, and Winona; he would have to explain no matter what it cost him. She followed his glance when it shifted to Winona. There was such anguish in Winona’s eyes; it knifed Lily’s heart.


  In her father’s eyes, Lily saw his love for Winona. Lily saw how he wanted to go to her, to support her, and he would have, but Win’s posture, the set of her shoulders, her rigid spine, warned him off. Words might have been said at that point. Raw truths might have been revealed in those initial moments following the horrific scene they’d passed through. They were all vulnerable, all at the mercy of a volatile mix of emotions, but it was then that the Wyatt police rolled up, two squad cars, five officers—nearly the entire force, and after that, all the talking that was done was to them.

  23

  Lily sat in an interrogation room giving Sergeant Ken Carter her account of the events that had unfolded that morning, beginning with Winona’s predawn phone call. A tape recorder sat in the middle of the scarred table, and she spoke to it, reciting the details she remembered in a low voice. When she continued to shiver, Ken brought her a thin blanket, and she draped it over her shoulders. He said her shivering was the effect of the adrenaline leaving her body as much as from the AC.

  Sitting down again, he read from his notes, telling her what they’d found upon executing the search warrant at Erik’s apartment, which they’d done at roughly the same time Winona had dialed the ranch house landline. Among other items there had been bloody clothes and a letter written by Erik, addressed To whom it may concern, in which he rambled on about the perceived injustices that he felt had been perpetrated on him from birth.

  Ken said, “We found a lip-liner pencil that looks to be the same color as the one used to write the notes, the one Leigh found under her windshield wiper and the one that was found with Becca. It’s possible it belonged to her, or it might have been Shea’s or Kate’s. We’ll send it to the lab, see if it’s a match. We also talked to a neighbor at the complex who said that late on the night of Becca’s murder, Erik asked to borrow his scooter. The neighbor saw Erik loading it into the back of a white pickup truck.”

  “That’s how he got back to town then, after he set AJ’s truck on fire. He rode the scooter,” Lily said.

  “Took some planning all the way around. Maybe the murders weren’t premeditated, but framing AJ sure was.” Ken paused, seeming to consider.

  “What?” Lily asked.

  “Well, you know some of what Erik did, it’s like he also considered making it look like a sexual assault.”

  “Because of how Becca was found, partially nude,” Lily said. It sounded better than saying Becca’s pants had been yanked to her ankles.

  “Yeah,” Ken said, “but the ME found no sign of it.”

  A small consolation, Lily thought, that Becca hadn’t suffered that further profane indignity at least. She said, “Erik is the one who called me and asked for the passport.”

  “Yeah, and he planted AJ’s laptop and cell phone at the bus station. He talked to the pilot, too. Erik and AJ are roughly the same height and build. From a distance, wearing hoodies, they might look pretty much the same to someone who didn’t see them regularly.”

  “He left the charm where the police would find it after he—after he—”

  “Pushed Kate to her death. Yeah.”

  Lily tightened the blanket around her shoulders. “It takes my breath, what he’s done. He was as distraught, as grief stricken, as all of us were. How does someone do that?”

  “It’s hard to understand, especially when you think you know somebody. Maybe he snapped, reading Jeb’s will, finding out like that, that he’d been cut off.”

  Lily hated it, Ken knowing the contents of her dad’s will, something so personal to her family. But their lives would be laid bare now, fodder for the gossip mill. That was how it worked in Wyatt. “I taught him to tie his shoes,” she said softly.

  Several moments passed.

  Lily found Ken’s gaze again. “I was so shocked when AJ showed up at Winona’s. Wasn’t there an officer posted at his door?”

  “Well, we’d executed the warrant on Ayala’s apartment by then, and we knew AJ wasn’t involved, so we pulled the officer. No one saw AJ leave.”

  “Shea said no one could have stopped him if they’d tried. I just hope he hasn’t made everything worse.”

  “I don’t think so. He’s back in his room; he’s seen the doc. He’s going to be okay. Shea’s with him, and one of the sergeants is there, getting their statements. Don’t worry.”

  “What about Dad? How is he holding up?”

  “He’s with Captain Mackie. They’re about done, too.” Ken shut off the recorder. “All of this, having y’all in, taking down your witness statements, it’s just a formality. We’ve got the picture now, or most of it, anyway.”

  “It’s not a very good one, is it?” Lily clenched her teeth, refusing to give up her tears to this man. He had already seen into the darkest chamber of her family’s heart. He’d been allowed to trespass through secret-filled rooms, where it had sickened her to go. She thought of her father’s betrayal and the devastation it caused that had played such a huge role in what Erik had done. She thought of Erik’s dream. What he’d wanted was so simple—Kate and children in a yard in front of a house down the street from AJ and Shea. The four of them, good friends, raising their families together. The inheritance Erik had been promised—he would have counted on it to provide financial security for his family. But her father had jerked that away, and Becca and then Kate had threatened to expose him, and he’d snapped, as Ken said. If only her father had acknowledged Erik as his son; if only he’d openly recognized Erik as a blood relation, an Axel, and an equally revered heir—but, no. Her dad had chosen to keep Erik’s true connection to the family secret, as if he was ashamed. And Lily was awfully afraid she knew why, that it was out of deference to her. Had he thought she couldn’t handle it? Had he been afraid of her judgment?

  Or was it his own judgment of himself, his own bias he couldn’t face?

  “Winona—is she still here?” Lily asked Ken.

  He nodded. “It’s a hell of a thing, you know—what her son has done, but she’s holding up. She’s a strong lady.”

  “Yes,” Lily said. She and Win hadn’t spoken before being brought here. She couldn’t imagine the level of Win’s grief and confusion. Nor could she imagine what would come of them now, how they would go on from here. “What about Erik? He’s here, too?”

  “Yeah, but he’ll probably be transported to Dallas later in the week for arraignment; the judge will read the charges against him and set bail, or not, depending. I’d say it’s likely not.”

  “Can I see him?” Did she really want to? Lily wondered.

  “Well, he’s asked to be left alone. He doesn’t even want to see his mom.”

  Lily nodded, feeling relieved, as if of an onerous duty. She had no idea what she would say to him. I forgive you? It felt way too soon to for that.

  An officer drove them back to Winona’s. Lily’s dad rode in front. Winona and Lily were in back, heads turned from each other, staring from the windows as if the scenery mattered. But there was too much baggage in the car with them, too many emotion-packed suitcases, taking up the space, all the air. Lily felt that. How overwhelming it was. She was startled when her dad turned to Winona, leaning around the passenger seat. “I’ll pay,” he said. “For a lawyer. Erik’s legal expenses. If the judge sets bail, I’ll pay it.”

  “He won’t,” Winona said in a wooden voice to the window. She was hunched over; her braid was caught against the seat. Lily wanted to free it. She wanted to wind it into the coronet Winona always wore like a crown. She wanted to restore Win, her dignity, her gentle spirit.

  Lily set her hand on the seat between them.

  She thought her dad would turn away, but he didn’t. Neither did he say anything, not for a long time. Miles passed before he spoke again. “I’m sorry,” he said, including both Lily and Winona in his glance.

  “I am leaving the ranch,” Winona said. “I will not be back. You can do what you want with the house. I don’t want it. But I will take your offer to help Erik. Yes, I will, because he is our son,
we made him, we raised him, and it is only right now for us to help him the best we can. We have to try”—she faltered—“try and make—make this right.”

  Lily’s throat closed. She felt Winona grasp her fingers, but she couldn’t look. She would lose it if she looked, and Win didn’t need that.

  Lily drove the Jeep home. Her dad, head bent to the backrest, kept his eyes closed as if that would stop her, the interrogation that he had to know was coming, and her questions would be harder to answer by far than those the police had asked.

  “How could you hide it, Dad, all these years? Never mind me. How could you do that to your own son and a woman I presume you love?”

  I’ll stop this car. She was on the verge of saying it, that she’d pull over until he talked to her, but then he said, “We didn’t want to hurt either of you.” He straightened, bent his head to his hand, pinching the bridge of his nose.

  “Did you think I’d be mad? Even if I had been, it would have been on Mama’s account, and I would have gotten over it. You must know that much about me, Dad. It’s not as if I’m so judgmental. After Mama died, I would have been glad to know you’d found someone. Especially Winona. She was like a mother to me. You know that.”

  “It wasn’t your judgment that concerned me, Sissy. It was everyone else’s.”

  “Since when have you given a hoot in hell what anyone thinks of you?”

  “It wasn’t what they thought of me that worried me. It’s what they would have thought of Win, what they would have said about her if they’d known about us. I didn’t want a whiff of that to touch her or Erik after he was born.”

  “No one would have thought a thing of it if you’d married Win. Or even if you hadn’t. No one cares about that anymore. Win was living at the xL. She’s single, you’re single. She’s beautiful. Probably half the town suspects anyway. It’s the secrecy that is so—so terrible, just unforgivable, really. It’s as if you’re the one who’s ashamed of them.”